Understanding cultural significance, the edible mushrooms case

Table 2 Example of EMCSI compute process for the responses of three interviewees

Var.	Question	I 1	Cat.	Val.	I 2	Cat.	Val.	I 3	Val.	Compute
QI	Sp. mentioned in his/her free list	Yes		1	Yes		1	No	0	2/3 = 0.67*
PAI	Informant rank the abundance of sp_i	B	B	2.5	C	C	5		0	3.75
FUI	How often do you eat sp_i?	Every week	4 or more a year	10	Monthly from Jul. to Sep.	2–3 times a year	7.5		0	8.75
TSAI	How much do you like sp_i?	D	D	10	C	C	6.67		0	8.335
MFFI	How do you cook sp_i?	Fried in butter, raw	Cooked alone plus raw (9 + 1)	10	"Amarillito con hongos"	Not principal element	5		0	7.5
KTI	How many generations know...	Since grandma	Three or more generations	10	Learned from husband	Town, not blood parent	5		0	7.5
HI	How safe is to eat sp_i...	Eat it with confidence		6.67	Because it is good to health		10		0	8.335
EI	Have you sold/bought sp_i...	No		0	Buy every month	Regularly	6.67		0	3.335
EMCSI										46.404

In Var.: Variable. QI: Mention Index. PAI: Perceived Abundance Index. FUI: Frequency of Use Index. TSAI: Taste Score
Appreciation Index. MFFI: Multifunctional Food Index. KTI: Knowledge Transmission index. HI: Health Index. EI: Economic Index.
EMCSI: Edible Mushroom Cultural Significance Index. I 1, I 2, I 3: Answers of informants 1, 2 and 3. Cat.: Categorization. Val. Value. In the entire table, the categorizations and associated values are those indicated in Table 1. In Compute: * the formula for QI = (Number of mentions/Number of informants) 10. However, note than the division by 10 is to fit QI values to the same scale of other variables, because in this example just 3 informants were considered, the division was not done. The final value of each variable (except QI) is the average of informants' responses considering just those that knew the species; in this case 2.

ISSN: 1746-4269